Description:

Retinue
Edward’s knights of the body are Sir Robert Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert Debenham, Sir John Middleton, Sir William Blount, and Sir Humphrey Talbot. King Edward commands 2 detachments of men-at-arms and 2 detachments of archers.

Bio:

King Edward IV of England is 28 years old in January of 1470. Currently he fights to reclaim the throne from the Lancastrian supporters of King Henry VI, who he usurped crown from in the year 1461. His father Richard the Duke of York, Earl of March, and Earl of Ulster, started the War of the Roses in the year 1455 when he met a royalist army and defeated them in the streets of St. Albans.

The oldest son and second child of the Duke of York and his wife Lady Cecily Neville the Duchess of York, a niece of King Henry VI, Edward was born a prince in Rouen, Northern France while his father the Duke of York campaigned against the French and Burgundians during the Hundred Years’ War. He has two brothers currently living, George Plantagenet the Duke of Clarence and Richard Plantagenet the Duke of Gloucester. Edwards first taste of battle came at his father and cousin’s victory over KIng Henry VI at the First Battle of St. Alban’s in May 1455. Both His father the Duke of York and younger brother Edmund the Earl of Rutland were later killed in the Battle of Wakefield in December of 1460 trying to reassert the Duke of York’s claim to become King of England as the legal heir of King Henry.

Edward was absent from this disastrous defeat and thus became the Earl of March & Earl Ulster, whereupon he soon invaded England at Ravenspur from Calais. With the support of his cousin, Richard Neville the Earl of Warwick and many of his father’s loyal noblemen, Prince Edwards first major victory came in March of 1461 at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross. With three suns shining in the morning sky, sundogs as they were called by the fighting men in the armies of both Lancaster and York, Edward defeated and killed a great number of enemies at Mortimer’s Cross. Soon after his victory he was crowned King of England at London in December of 1460. He defended his claim at the Battle of Towton in March of 1461 where the House of York won a great victory over the House of Lancaster in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday. As such he inherited a fragile kingdom after the Battle of Towton, attempting to pacify as well as please his many over-mighty noble subjects. King Edward made war with Scotland in 1462-1463 after the King of Scots aided King Henry VI in the siege of Norham castle.

The gravest revolt against his reign before 1470 came during the Lancastrian Northern Rising of 1464. Incensed that Edward had married Lady Grey without his consent, the Earl of Warwick distanced himself greatly from his cousin and the new Yorkist court. King Edward is married to Elizabeth Woodville, formerly Lady Grey, the daughter of Richard the Earl Rivers and currently Queen Consort of England. They have three children, Princesses Elizabeth & Cecily, 8 and 9 years old, and the newborn Prince Edward, currently living at an unknown location under the protection of his uncle, the Earl Rivers and his mother, the Queen. The king’s last known whereabouts place him somewhere in either France or Burgundy according to Lancastrian envoys.